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‘The President’s Cake’ Review: Hasan Hadi’s Warm and Heart-Tugging Tale Sends Dutiful Kids on an Odyssey in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq
Playing the Cannes Film Festival, Hasan Hadi’s compassionate directorial debut follows two Iraqi children living under Saddam Hussein.
Even then, the happenstance link between Hasan Hadi ’s compassionate directorial debut “The President’s Cake” and Fatih Akin’s quiet epic “Amrum” is something of a shock, as both movies send their young protagonists onto grand quests to gather around basic supplies like flour, sugar, eggs and so on at times of tragic scarcity born under dictators. With the likes of Chris Columbus and Marielle Heller among its executive producers, Hadi’s film has the makings of a commercial arthouse winner, filled with observant period details in its lived-in production design — the organized chaos of the roads, the dust in the air, all the Saddam-related signage and so on. It’s in these emotionally intimate moments that Hadi and his cinematographer Tudor Vladimir Panduru especially reach for expressive lighting to amplify the kids’ dignity, as well as thoughtful close-ups of the film’s wonderful young cast — Saeed’s toughened-beyond-his-years visage, and Lamia’s dramatic eyes, often on the verge of tears.
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